? “Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel and chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Martin Dempsey both warned Congress on Wednesday about the unintended consequences of a U.S. military intervention in Syria.” Interesting remarks.

? Former Pakistani president Pervez Musharraf recently returned from exile. He wants to make a political come-back, was disqualified from running by a court in Peshawar, and today was charged with treason in an Islamabad court. Musharraf raced from the courtroom and high-tailed it back to his heavily-guarded compound.

? Justice, UK style. “Chagossians [ref: US airbase on Diego Garcia] suffer blow in fight to go home as court rejects WikiLeak cable: US embassy cables allegedly detailing UK plan to stop return to Indian Ocean islands used by US military is ruled inadmissible.”

InternationalFinance

? “[L]eading figures in central banking [in Europe] conceded they were flying blind when steering their economies.” Incredible quotes (“there is the risk of appearing to promise too much”, “We don’t fully understand what is happening”, “we are in uncharted territory”, etc.) from those comfortably removed from the day-to-day suffering they cause.

? Corporations won and a 224-year-old US federal law was constrained by the US Supreme Court yesterday when it blocked a suit by 12 Nigerians accusing Shell Oil “of complicity in a violent crackdown on protesters in Nigeria from 1992 to 1995.” The US Chamber of Commerce is ecstatic.

? Lovely bunch: Dan Loeb -“hedge fund king extraordinaire”, Michelle Rhee – Students First, Paul Tudor Jones – Tudor Funds. All three are against defined benefit pension plans, including for teachers, and they have overlapping ties. Loeb manages several public pension funds and now has his eye on the California State Teachers’ Retirement System. The American Federation of Teachers is onto him, however. So is Matt Taibbi.